Category: Champion Doug Veitch

Douglas Veitch, better known as Champion Doug Veitch (born 1960, Hawick, Scotland) is a Scottish musician and songwriter.

The self-styled ‘King of Caledonian Swing’ rose to some prominence in the mid 1980s.A favourite of John Peel, for whom he recorded two radio sessions, he holds the record for having most (six) consecutive NME singles of the week. His music was a ground-breaking polycultural mix, using elements from dub, reggae, country Music and Scottish folk music, which foretold the cross cultural mixing more common in later years.

In 1985, he co-founded the label DiscAfrique with his colleague Owen Elias, which was one of the first world music labels in the United Kingdom, releasing records by The Bhundu Boys, Orchestre Baobab and The Four Brothers amongst others.

In 1989, he released an album of Scottish country dance music with his wife under the moniker Martin, Doug and Sara.

And from his own website, a more recent update:-

In 1989, Doug released a compilation album, “The Original”, which included all the singles plus tracks from radio sessions.

This album featured all of Doug’s musical influences, from Country, Reggae, Mariachi, Western Swing, Cajun through to the High Life guitar music of Ghana. The album gained much media attention from the press. Despite renewed interest, Doug remained a virtual recluse and could not be persuaded to perform live.

However, in the summer of 2014, Doug replied to a Facebook post from Pete Lawrence (Making Waves) regarding “Reeling” – an album of Scottish dance music that Doug had released with Martin Bell. This led to a discussion on the prospect of playing a live gig. After a gap of some thirty years and largely due to the efforts of Martin in sourcing a truly all-star band, in February 2015, Champion Doug Veitch made a “triumphant and joyous” return at the 100 Club in London.

Back on 8 October 2011, I started a series called ‘Saturday’s Scottish Single’. The aim was to feature one 45 or CD single by a Scottish singer or band with the proviso that the 45 or CD single was in the collection. I had got to Part 60-something and as far as Kid Canaveral when the rug was pulled out from under TVV.

I’ll catch up soon enough by featuring 5 or more at a time from the archives..

(28) Butcher Boy – Imperial b/w Juicy Fruit : Damaged Goods 7″ (2011)

One of my all time favourite bands. That I was able to promote one of their gigs in Glasgow in 2011 will always be a memory to treasure.

This is the thing they’ve ever made available on vinyl. Still not prepared to make Juicy Fruit available on the blog as the 500 copies of the single have never sold out….

Between calling themselves Captain America and ripping off the logo from a chain store, it can’t come as too much of a surprise that all sorts of injunctions soon forced changes and led to this 1992 single being deleted very very quickly. Captain America arose from the ashes of The Vaselines and sound a bit like the way Teenage Fanclub sounded in 1992. The name was soon changed to Eugenuis which was the nickname some had given to frontman Eugene Kelly

The ill-fated solo single that featured a few times over at the old blog…..and always with an apology. Written and recorded with the help of Davey Henderson (ex- Fire Engines and Win (etc!!) this was a huge flope and led to an LP that was already in the can being shelved. That more or less was the end of Clare’s musical career – tv and the stage awaited before the 21st Century phenomena of Rewind Festivals and appearances singing the old hits from the Altered Images days.

(33) Clean George IV – First Blast Of The Trumpet Against The Monstrous Regiment Of Women b/w The Great Highland Crack Epidemic (Black Spring Recordings 2007)

As written back in 2007 when this single was first mentioned on TVV:-

Clean George IV make a kind of racket they like to call ‘pop-rock’. Originally from Edinburgh they have been together for around a year (in various guises/lineups), have already supported Babyshambles and Clor and count Bloc Party’s singer, Kele Okereke, and drummer, Matt Tong, among their fans, as well as a veritable legion of other indie players…

They comprise of mainman/flagship George McFall and various musicians stolen from other bands. They say they are equal parts Eno, Devo, Erasure and Country (Big).

It was one of the other bloggers who alerted me to this. Could very well have been Ed over at 17 Seconds. Saw it in a shop soon after and bought it.

Hugely misogynist title. Don’t take it literally……..

(34) Close Lobsters – Going To Heaven To See If It Rains b/w Boys and Girls : Fire Records 7″ (1986)

I used to have a copy of this 7″ single but alas haven’t seen it in the collection for ages. Must have loaned it out and forgot all about it. I’m terrible for doing that with vinyl and books:- mp3 : The Close Lobsters – Going To Heaven To See If It Rains mp3 : The Close Lobsters – Boys and Girls Released in October 1986, this was the debut single. Still sounds great after all these years. Both sides of the single. Please don’t argue

It takes about three times as long to pull out and paste pieces from the archives as it does to put a new post together thanks to the the search engine to the archives taking forever. This particular post has been a brute.